The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Due to the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication devices, people of all ages and education levels are utilizing electronic devices to communicate with other individuals or contacts, receive services and/or share information, media and other content. In order to provide easier or faster information transfer and convenience, telecommunication industry service providers are developing improvements to existing networks. For example, 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) compliant mobile networks are currently being deployed. The 3GPP compliant mobile networks (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE) communications systems), may be aimed at upgrading prior technologies by improving efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum opportunities, and providing better integration with other open standards.
One advantage of 3GPP compliant mobile networks which continues to be shared with other preceding telecommunications standards is the fact that users are enabled to access a network employing such standard while remaining mobile. Thus, for example, users having mobile terminals equipped to communicate in accordance with such standards may travel vast distances while being connected to and maintaining communication with the network.
A 3GPP compliant mobile network may utilize an Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) which may be a tool for configuring 3GPP terminals (e.g., a 3GPP handset, User Equipment) with rules regarding a manner in which to access or select one or more networks as well as providing rules to a 3GPP mobile terminal specifying which network interface to select in order to send (e.g., cellular data, packets, etc.). In this regard, an ANDSF may assist a 3GPP mobile terminal to discover the access networks in their vicinity and to provide rules (policies) to prioritize and manage connections to these networks.
On the other hand, an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard may define a set of tools informing nodes, such as, for example, non-3GPP devices (e.g., personal computers, laptops, home routers, etc.), where these nodes should send data (e.g., packets). However, IETF does not typically define a set of tools informing a device as to which interface (e.g., a cellular interface, a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) interface) to utilize for communicating data. At present, users of non-3GPP devices may manually select the interface to utilize.
Currently, non-3GPP devices such as, for example, personal computers (PCs) may utilize active Universal Serial Bus (USB) data modem dongles and WLAN networks at the same time. In this regard, even if a non-3GPP device (e.g., a PC) has only a single physical interface (e.g., a cellular interface via a USB dongle or WLAN interface), the non-3GPP device may still have virtual interfaces such as Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections active at the same time.
In this regard, although ANDSF typically provides a solution for cellular network operators to configure network and routing information to 3GPP terminals, an ANDSF is generally unable to configure non-3GPP devices that may be connected to the 3GPP terminals.